Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Meat Sandwiches
Ingredients
Directions
Spread the bread with butter or mayonnaise, or mix the meat with mayonnaise.
Add a crisp lettuce leaf or watercress with the meat.
Chop cooked chicken and celery together, then mix with mayonnaise or fresh dressing.
Use thinly sliced meat, seasoned with salt, pepper, and mustard if using ham, and spread with mayonnaise or French dressing.
Chop or pound meats to a paste, mix with hard-boiled eggs, a little cream, and season with salt, pepper, and onion juice if desired.
Mix chopped ham with mustard, a little cream or mayonnaise, and chopped pickles or olives.
Cook chicken livers until tender with a thin slice of onion, a few peppercorns, and salt, then chop finely and mix with cream or mayonnaise.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,356 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,169 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,033 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mustard
The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, lettuce, chicken, celery, pepper, ham):
- Mustardthe original
- Leekfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Tomatofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, lettuce, chicken, celery, pepper, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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